


On the Subtle Art of Shooting First

by wizardslexicon



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizardslexicon/pseuds/wizardslexicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone needs some time to unwind. Sometimes unwinding just happens to involve sweating your exhaustion out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Subtle Art of Shooting First

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mutuisanimis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutuisanimis/gifts).



The Crossings, Rirhath B’s Intercontinual Worldgating Facility, thrummed with life at any hour, a quicklife organism the size of New Jersey, and those who spent more time in it than most were especially attuned to the steady rhythm of the movements of its living, walking humors. Amidst a sea of tentacles, exoskeletons, spindly multi-jointed limbs, and eyestalks sat one such person: a perfectly normal (from a rather anthropocentric perspective) Latina girl, sipping on what had obviously been intended to be a mimicry of a vanilla milkshake, and might have been so, had it not possessed a mucoid gray-green color.

She inclined her head very slightly, somehow sensing a disturbance in the flow of traffic. Her sharp eyes caught it quickly, and held. The source of the disturbance was a small bundle topped with a bright red crown, smashing its way through the throng and leaving murmurs of dismay in her wake. Carmela signalled the bartender to hold her stool, and went to collect the bundle, which proximity shortly rendered into the diminutive but normally intimidating figure of Dairine Callahan. Now, though, she looked like seventeen distinct colors of hell had been sucked out of her, and the bags under her eyes looked like they had subcompartments.

“That you, Callahan?” asked Carmela, peering at her as if in curiosity. “Can’t tell through the haze of pure exhaustion.”

“Hi, Carmela,” said Dairine, in the sighing voice of someone for whom conversation is an unpleasant rarity. She found herself taken by the elbow and plopped into the seat next to Carmela’s, where she promptly sank her head into her arms and attempted to ignore all creation. Carmela looked at her for a moment.

“This is pretty serious,” she said to herself, before waving the barkeep over. “Get this girl a glinkre, with the mellun eggs. A salted virvi burger, too? Put it on my tab.” Carmela’s tab could have easily paid for the little restaurant, so the bartender nodded before setting a few of his arms to the task.

Dairine was roused from her stupor a few minutes later by the familiar aroma of sizzling meat, and looked up to find a hamburger, only with some sort of alien meat instead of beef, and tomatoes that weren’t Earth-native. The burger lay in a bed of hot, seasoned fries, and was complimented by what looked like a milkshake, only a deep brown color, and with shuddering little black dots inside.

The meat in the burger turned out to be some sort of bird, very lean, and tasting vaguely of chicken, and as she polished off the burger and fries and turned to the milkshake, Carmela finally saw fit to engage her in conversation.

“Hey...you really don’t seem well. Wanna talk about it?” Carmela was playing with her phone, but the concern could not have been more obvious if it were palpable. Dairine took a long sip of the glinkre, finding its nutty-buttery flavor and the rubbery sweetness of the mellun eggs much more palatable than they looked, before answering.

“I guess. ‘M tired.” _Although I feel a lot less so_ , she thought, _since I started drinking this thing. Caffeine equivalent? Spot, look up mellun eggs next time you get a chance_. She caught the computer-Manual’s assent by thought just in time to tune back in to Carmela.

“Tired!” she was saying, on the finishing end of a tirade. “I would never have guessed.”

“Yeah, well,” said Dairine, the spirit of eloquence. “I thought using the gates instead of my own juice to get to Wellakh every day would be easier. It’s not.” Carmela’s face turned very serious.

“It’s what...six in the morning, Earth time? I just woke up. But you’re just coming in, aren’t you?” Dairine didn’t answer. “This has got to stop. You’re taking the week off, starting tomorrow morning. It’s called summer break for a _reason_.” Dairine’s mouth opened in rebellion, but Carmela cut her off. “Don’t test me. I bet you told your dad you were sleeping over at a friend’s. Bet he was relieved. How would he feel if I called him and told him where you were?”

“You wouldn’t—”

“And who, I wonder, could he call that could stop you from leaving your block?” Carmela stirred her milkshake. Dairine opened her mouth again, and shut it.

“I’m listening.”

“Good. You, me, Doherty Park, tomorrow morning at nine. Dress for exercise. Take today to rest, ‘kay?” Dairine nodded mutely, and Carmela surprised her by patting her on the back and rubbing in small circles, a surprising comfort. Dairine couldn’t remember the last time someone had been that physically friendly with her. “See you then.”

 

When Dairine woke at seven the next day, ready to face the world with eyes slightly less sore. After a quick look at the outfit she’d set out the previous night—basketball shorts, a grey tank top, a sports bra—all her plans came back in a flash, and she groaned. Why she hadn’t fought back, she’d never know, but what she did know was that she was going cold turkey for a week, and now that she’d told Nelaid, it was too late to take it back.

She showered in a foul mood, until Nita yelled at her to stop hogging all the hot water, at which point she dried off and dressed in a foul mood, fixed herself some breakfast in a foul mood, and waited until about eight-thirty in a foul mood. Her dad strolled into the kitchen, saw the grimace on her face, and winced.

“What’s going on?” he asked, pausing in front of the open refrigerator. “Not looking forward to hanging out with Carmela later?” Dairine shook her head.

“It’s not that...I think. Can we talk about it later? I don’t wanna be late.” He waved her out, and she hopped on her bike, and got halfway to the park before she realized she’d never mentioned being around Carmela to him.

She arrived on the smooth, carefully tended lawn of Doherty Park and chained her bike up with a sigh, looking out to see Carmela waving her over. As she approached. Dairine took note of Carmela’s clothes: a cute skort, a tank top and sports bra that looked a lot prettier than hers, and a visor. Slung over the older girl’s shoulder was a long nylon bag, from which she produced a racquet.

“Morning, Dairine!” chirped Carmela, handing her the racquet. Dairine looked at it, and remembered trying to play tennis with her mother years before. She recalled balls going over fences, more running than she ever wanted to do in her life, and a total inability to do a backhand.

“Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely _so_ ,” said Carmela, shoulders thrown back very slightly. “There’s nothing quite as cathartic as smacking a ball around a court for a few hours.” Dairine found herself being lead through the gates onto the court, and blankly watched as Carmela opened a can of balls with a sharp crack.

Carmela put a few of the balls into the pocket of her skort, produced her own racquet, and began hitting balls over the net to Dairine.

The next few hours were a haze of form corrections, balls sailing over the fence, and a few, surprising moments where Dairine got it right, the racquet made a sharp, satisfying noise, and the strength of it went easily up her arm while the ball shot over the net like a bullet to a pleased Carmela. Eventually, though, the sun was high and both of them were tired and sweaty. All this without playing a single actual game.

“Alright, Dairine,” said Carmela. “Stretch when you get home, and before you come tomorrow.” She tossed her a Powerade. “And good work out there.” Dairine nodded, too exhausted to complain, and gulped down half the sports drink in one go.

“How’s this supposed to relax me?” she asked, after a moment of catching her breath. Carmela grinned.

“I’ll show you _that_ tomorrow.”

 

Dairine showered as soon as she arrived home, then tumbled out just as Nita got in, presumably from errantry if the noise she’d heard from the backyard was any indication.  Sure enough, when she dropped into the kitchen, scrubbed and starving, there was Nita munching an apple while Kit updated his manual with the precís on their latest project. Dairine stormed over to the fridge, opened it, and found the contents had been switched with the Rodriguezs’.

There was a little paper bag and a glass bottle, both labeled “Dairine, from Carmela”, and Dairine realized that this little one-week thing was much bigger than she’d given it credit for. Her lunch was a chicken sandwich, some graham crackers, mandarin oranges, and the most bourgeois bottle of water she’d ever seen. _It’s glass, for Powers’ sake!_ Dairine groused to herself, but she had to admit that the lunch was better and more nutritious than any she’d have made herself.

“Wanna hear what we’re doing on Nept—”

“Already know, don’t care.” Dairine cut Kit off, expecting offense, but instead she got laughter.

“Still grumpy about tennis with ‘Mela? You brought it on yourself, Vader.” Dairine didn’t even rise to the bait, just went up to her room and opened Spot, hoping to distract herself by reading Manual passages. She’d found that for someone always aching for knowledge, the Manual could be something like TvTropes: a constant source of entertainment that you had a hard time getting away from.

The thickest section of the Manual was about the intersection of sports and wizardry: like how form, especially in sports like ice skating, could become a spell of its own, and how the clever wizard could spell their equipment. Apparently sports and wizardry had been intersecting since the first wizards, and Dairine, was interested despite herself.She read until the light from Spot hurt her eyes, and then thanked him and went to sleep, ready to face another day.

 

Dairine woke up not ready.

She hurt _everywhere_. Her legs, from all of the running around the court; her back, from bending over to pick up balls; and especially her wrists, which had been taking the force of Powers knew how many mis-hit balls. She wasn’t angry anymore, mostly, but now the reality of a week of this had set in, and she wasn’t exactly excited.

After stretching and changing, she biked to Doherty Park, where Carmela was already waiting for her with two racquets in hand.

“How do you feel?” asked Carmela, offering Dairine hers.

“Like hell,” said Dairine. Carmela laughed at her, and explained that they’d actually be playing today.

“Not a full match, but a few games! You’ll see how this is relaxing...”

Dairine doubted it, but as Carmela took her first serve and the game began, she realized the point.

Dairine usually thought of tennis as a country club sport; something bored WASPS with more money than they could possibly waste did, not something you’d do for fun. But this was different. This was _aggressive_. Every ounce of frustration with star-magic, anger at herself, anger, if she admitted it, at Roshaun for being gone, could come out through the dance of ball and racquet, and it felt amazing.

“Work on getting the ball over the net before you kill it!” called Carmela, chuckling. The discovery had gotten through at last, which meant that Carmela had both cheered up her friend and gotten a new tennis partner.

“Work on returning what I send you!” replied Dairine, and took her serve again, grinning.

 

At the end of the week, Carmela and Dairine sat on park benches, sweaty, exhausted, and euphoric, both with the joy of a shared pastime and a friendship forged stronger.

“Hey, are you busy next week?” asked Dairine, pushing a strand of wet hair out of her face. Carmela, who had hair long enough to braid and thus didn’t have that issue, smiled at her in return. “Because I’ve worked out a schedule with Nelaid where I have mornings off...”

“Nah, I’ve got a pretty open schedule with my job.”

“As a chocolate smuggler?”

“Yep. I show up when I like, and if my clients want the goods, they show up, too.” They had a laugh, but then Carmela’s face veered towards the serious, and Dairine noted a change in atmosphere.

“‘Mela, it’s fine.”

“I know. I just...want you to know that I’ve had a great time this week, and that if you’re ever stressed, or sad, or just need a bar of the good stuff with the crystallized orange peel—you have my number.” Dairine nodded, and reached out for a hug, and Carmela hesitated.

“Ah, we’re both sweaty...oh, who cares! My datemate is a _shrub_.” They hugged for a moment before the sensation became too disgusting to tolerate further.

“Alright, _alright_ , moment done. See you next Monday, _thelef_!” called Dairine as she walked off to her bike, leaving Carmela touched, and a little annoyed that, as usual, Dairine Callahan had shot first.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Geekhyena, bless her mortal soul.


End file.
